Gordon Pound was born in 1939 in England’s rural Oxfordshire near the village of Gallows Tree Common, the scene – it is alleged – of the demise of many of his ancestors.

Too young to appreciate the horrors of the Second World War he enjoyed the best things about a country childhood while his father worked his grandfather’s farm, but during his teen years he endured life at an English boarding school, which was founded in 1571 and – or so the inmates suspected – retained most of the original plumbing and some of the original masters.

Yearning for a farming career he attended Seale-Hayne Agricultural College where he obtained his diploma and was immediately conscripted into the British Army as a Gunner. Offered the chance to try for a commission he accepted because there would be less people to boss him around.

After enduring winters on Salisbury Plain and the West Coast of Scotland he sought something more tropical and, in 1964, transferred to the Australian Army, just in time to be sent to tropical Vietnam.

During the next twenty years he served in many parts of Australia and overseas, including a second tour in Vietnam, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel where there were even fewer people to boss him around.

In 1984 his yearning for the land became too strong to resist and he retired to rural North-East Tasmania where he lived with his wife, two children, in-laws and an assortment of animals, all of whom bossed him around.

In the intervening years since then he spent some years working again for the government before retiring for good. Somewhere along the way his marriage failed and he returned to the UK where he is rediscovering the delights of the English countryside and reuniting with long lost friends and family. His son and daughter remained in Australia, but there are reciprocal visits, during which he finds that his granddaughter has matured into a beautiful woman who makes the most of every opportunity to boss him around.